The New Taiwan dollar advanced to the strongest level in 16 months after China’s exports increased at more than three times the pace estimated by economists, boosting the outlook for regional trade.
The NT dollar climbed the most in a week as China, Taiwan’s biggest overseas market, said yesterday that shipments gained 17.7 percent from a year earlier last month and imports jumped 55.9 percent.
Speculation that China will resume appreciation in the yuan this year raises the odds that other Asian currencies will also strengthen, said Rod Hu, a currency trader in Taipei at Shinkong Life Insurance Co (新光銀行).
“We expect the renminbi [yuan] to be revalued against the [US] dollar this year, probably in the second half,” Hu said. “If the [US] dollar moves lower against the yuan, all money will chase Asian currencies this year.”
The NT dollar advanced 0.3 percent to NT$31.780 against the US dollar as of 4pm, Taipei Forex Inc said. It reached NT$31.720, the strongest level since September 2008.
The yuan has been kept at about 6.83 per dollar since July 2008, after climbing 21 percent in the three years after a peg to the greenback was abandoned in 2005, to help exporters weather a global recession.
Twelve-month yuan forwards rose 0.4 percent yesterday to 6.601, reflecting bets the currency will strengthen 3.4 percent in a year from its spot rate of 6.8265.
Taiwan’s 10-year bonds advanced on speculation lenders invested excess funds in government securities.
Local banks held NT$177.3 billion (US$5.6 billion) more in reserves than required by the monetary authority as of Friday, the Taipei Interbank Money Center said.
The nation’s central bank said last month that it will maintain an “appropriately loose monetary policy” to support the economy.
“There are some people taking in government bonds,” said Vincent Chiu (邱文昇), a debt trader at Polaris Securities Co (寶來證券) in Taipei. “Ample liquidity is a factor.”
The yield on the 1.375 percent bond maturing September 2019 fell one basis point to 1.53 percent, according to GRETAI Securities Market, Taiwan’s biggest exchange for bonds. Its price climbed 0.0843, or NT$84.30 per NT$100,000 face amount, to 98.5897. A basis point is 0.01 percentage points.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day